Fair Oaks, Calif.: Tax lawyer Hiram M. Martin, 71, who
represented retired professional football player Antrel Rolle, has been
sentenced to three years in prison today for fraudulently obtaining refunds for
Rolle, stealing the refunds and then covering up his scheme by filing false
documents with the Internal Revenue Service.

Martin, who pleaded
guilty on Jan. 7 to one felony count of attempting to obstruct or impede the
administration of internal revenue laws, was also ordered to pay $1,223,480 in
restitution.

Martin admitted that
he submitted false tax returns for Rolle, who hired Martin when he was a
23-year-old rookie in the National Football League. The returns claimed
millions in bogus charitable donations and business expenses; Martin never
informed Rolle about the phony deductions. The IRS issued refunds of $322,008
for the 2005 tax year and $901,472 for the 2006 year as a result of Martin’s
deductions.

Martin directed the
IRS to deposit the refunds into Martin’s bank account or to mail the refunds to
his mailing address. Martin then used the money for his personal benefit,
including an investment account under his control.

When the IRS began
auditing Rolle’s returns for these years, Martin faxed two letters in 2009 to
the agency that attempted to support the fraudulent donations. Then, without
Rolle’s authorization, Martin filed petitions in Tax Court challenging the IRS
after it rejected the deductions. Martin has admitted that he forged Rolle’s
signature on the Tax Court petitions.

In May 2011, again
without Rolle’s knowledge or authorization, Martin agreed to a judgment that
imposed a tax liability of nearly $2 million on Rolle. Martin also admitted
that he provided Rolle with a fabricated set of returns for 2005 and 2006 that
did not claim any refunds. Martin also took steps to prevent the IRS from
directly contacting Rolle by providing the IRS with his own personal and
business addresses and claiming they were Rolle’s addresses.

According to the
indictment, in 2015 Hicks owned J. Hicks Appliances in Huntingdon, and
Appliances and More in Lexington, Tenn. Responsible for the business
recordkeeping, he underreported the gross receipts by $98,031 for the taxable
year of 2015.

Hicks also filed false
U.S. individual income tax returns by underreporting gross receipts on his
Schedule C in 2012, 2013 and 2014, resulting in an underreporting of income of
$335,000.

On Nov. 13, a federal
grand jury returned a four-count indictment against Hicks for filing false and
fraudulent statements on income tax returns for 2012 to 2015. On March 27,
Hicks pleaded guilty to one count of the indictment for calendar year 2015.

Hicks faces a maximum
of three years in federal prison, a period of supervised release and monetary
penalties. As part of the plea agreement, Hicks will pay restitution of $95,210
to the U.S. Sentencing is June 27.

New York: CPA Christopher Miu, 58, has been sentenced to
14 months in prison for filing a return in his own name that contained
materially false information.

According to case
documents and statements in court, between 2008 and 2014 Miu failed to file
income tax returns on his own behalf. When he ultimately filed returns for
those years, he substantially under-reported his gross income, leading to a tax
loss to the U.S. of more than $550,000.

Miu was also sentenced
to a year of supervised release and ordered to pay $670,000 in restitution.

Ambrosino was an
attorney licensed to practice in New York and specializing in economic and
industrial development and financing, and was formerly of counsel at a law firm
in Uniondale, N.Y. Since March 2003 Ambrosino has served as a councilman for
Hempstead.

In 2011, he
incorporated Vanderbilt Consulting Group Inc. and was the company’s sole
shareholder. Ambrosino subsequently opened and controlled a bank account in the
name of Vanderbilt and was the sole authorized signer on that account. From
2013 through 2015, he diverted more than $800,000 in legal fees from clients
that he was required to provide to his law firm, and deposited them into the
Vanderbilt bank.

Ambrosino neither
admitted nor denied wrongdoing regarding this conduct, but as part of his
guilty plea agreed to pay $700,000 in restitution to the law firm.

Ambrosino also evaded
substantial income tax and filed false and fraudulent corporate tax returns on
behalf of Vanderbilt for the 2011, 2012 and 2013 tax years. He evaded the
assessment of income tax by claiming false and fraudulent business expense
deductions and failed to report funds he diverted from his former law firm. The
IRS suffered a tax loss of some $254,628, which will be recouped via
restitution.

Ambrosino faces up to
five years in prison, as well as restitution to the IRS and the New York State
Department of Taxation and Finance for taxes owed for the tax years 2011
through 2014. He also agreed to pay restitution of $700,000.

According to court
records and evidence, Delavan engaged in a fraudulent tax and investment fraud
scheme from approximately 2011 to 2016 that resulted in losses to victims of
more than $800,000 and a separate tax loss to the U.S. of more than $400,000.

Delavan offered a
fraudulent tax program to individuals in the Tidewater area and elsewhere where
they paid Delavan $10,000 to $12,500 to obtain fraudulent losses to offset
income on their returns. Delavan purported to deduct bad business debts from
non-operational entities he controlled, passing through these losses to client
returns as if the clients were actually involved in these entities. He also
solicited business loans and investments from some of the same and additional
clients that he falsely represented would be used for business purposes.

Delavan used such
funds for personal use, including the repayment of prior clients and such
personal expenses as private school tuition. Delavan also purported to sell
gold to certain clients but made false representations related to the value or
existence of the gold or the purpose of the funds obtained.

Sentencing is July 9.

New York: Tax preparer Rebecca Bayuo of the Bronx has
been sentenced to three years in prison for committing three different tax
frauds that involved using stolen IDs to obtain fraudulent refunds.

She was convicted of
12 counts of preparation of false returns, one count of theft of government
funds, one count of aggravated ID theft and two counts of subscribing to false
returns. The charges arose from Bayuo’s preparation of false returns on behalf
of clients, filing of false returns in the names of victims whose IDs she had
stolen, and her filing of false returns on her own behalf.

Bayuo owned and
operated Breakthrough Insurance Brokerage, a prep business. From about 2010
through about 2014, she used the stolen IDs of victims to file fraudulent
federal returns that generated undeserved refunds; many of the victims were
then unable to file returns and were deprived of refunds. Bayuo charged her
clients an additional fee for providing them with the stolen IDs of children as
false dependents; she recycled the same IDs as false dependents for numerous
returns over at least four years. From about 2014 to about 2015, she also filed
false personal income tax returns in her own name and included personal ID
information she had stolen from others.

She was also ordered
to forfeit $76,985 and pay restitution of $127,356.

Need back tax
help in Kansas City? Bank account levied
in Kansas City? Paycheck garnished in
Kansas City? Lien on business or home in
Kansas City? If you or a client need help fighting off the IRS, call Jeffrey R.
Siegel, your Kansas City tax attorney.
We help with IRS liens, wage garnishments, levies, offers in compromise,
innocent spouse relief, federal employment tax, Trust Fund Recovery Penalty and
installment agreements. Bring back some
stability to your life, and call (913) 735-4829.

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